


all their words for glory always sounded empty

by glassedplanets



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: M/M, Post-Series, narrative foils to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26709025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassedplanets/pseuds/glassedplanets
Summary: Time passes, as it is wont to do: in odd lurches and swings.
Relationships: Temeraire & Tenzing Tharkay, William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay
Comments: 19
Kudos: 75





	all their words for glory always sounded empty

**Author's Note:**

> guess what THIS ao3 user just read for the first time

Wingbeats echo above him in pitch-black skies, timed between the frantic slam of his heart against his ribs. No matter how far he runs or crawls, that soft breath washes warm and half-familiar over the shell of his ear as hands grasp his waist, his jaw, tangling in his hair to tilt his head back and expose the tender line of his neck.

"Don't you see," whispers a voice against the edge of his jaw, the press of a man's chest terribly solid against Laurence's back, "that I know every ugly inch of you? Martyrdom is a weak disguise, Will."

The hands, the _voice_ , they're familiar but Laurence can't put a face or a name to them, he can't remember– the rough, curiously scarred hands drift lower and the man sighs, as if in disappointment— he can't remember, he _can't remember_ , he doesn't even know why there's a rush of heat in his belly at the thought of this man, and Laurence wraps his hand around the man's wrist in warning before he can—

The world spins and he's on his back between one thumping wingbeat and another, and the creature bowing over him is so massive it blots out his entire field of vision, fills all of his perception with hot sulfurous breath, so different from before. The infinite dark eases for just one moment, only enough to show a flash of blue, one massive eye, colder than ice and creased with utter disappointment before he feels the edge of a massive talon press against his neck, and—

Laurence shudders awake, eyes opening to a room unfamiliar even in near-complete darkness, to unfamiliar sheets and an unfamiliar bed, and the distinct lack of grime and lingering gunsmoke and Temeraire.

The estate, he belatedly tells himself; this estate is his home now, thanks to Tharkay’s astonishing generosity.

As ungracious as it is, Laurence wonders whether there was any selfishness to it, any of Tharkay’s curiously shrouded motivations. The hall is lonely and dark, haunted by staff that doesn’t trust their lord quite yet, surrounded by empty moors, and even the skeleton of Temeraire’s pavilion only adds to the creeping desolation. Laurence knows he would be – he _is_ – selfish enough to want someone else with him in a house like this. Tharkay had simply been brave enough to ask. That counts for something. He isn’t quite sure what, though.

Time passes as it is wont to do in the dead of night: bizarrely, and with no concrete way to mark it. Laurence reassesses his immediate thoughts, chased on the tail of a dream that’s already slipping from his grasp.

The hall is beautiful, and it is well on its way to being well-kept. Tharkay has invested properly into the wellbeing of his estate, and the returns are already showing. Even the relative isolation isn’t so bad, frankly; Tharkay is an excellent host, and in these scant few weeks Laurence has come to realize just how deeply he values Tharkay’s friendship for so much more than a comfortable roof over his head. Tharkay has seen the ugliest depths that he has sunk to – some unbidden shiver crawls down his spine, some echo in his unconscious mind – and yet has judged Laurence worth every small kindness that he’s offered.

Though really, the kindnesses have not been small by any means, Laurence thinks; Tharkay has offered him a place where he is not beholden to the ton, nor to the Admiralty, nor to any other loyalties that others may weave from him. Laurence can simply _be_.

It’s a home. Or, at least, it should be.

Home is still, to Laurence, the great bellows of Temeraire’s lungs heaving softly next to him; the warmth of his body, the twitch of his tail and claws against dirt and grass and stone and against the backdrop of his crew shifting and snoring. The creak of a ship, too, is still home; the settling of wood against the weight of what she carries, and against the press of the ocean.

Perhaps one day he can add this hall – the creak of the third stair down, the clashingly painted door to the upstairs study, the hideous curtains that the maids have been trying desperately to free from dust – to that count as well.

* * *

Today they fly north of the great shearing line that cleaves the Highlands in twain; the great marching slash of lochs is visible as a dark, glimmering wound, water heavy and black with peat. A line almost harsh enough to cut the Great Glen off from the rest of Scotland, Tharkay thinks, as he watches between wingbeats as tiny distant forms of man and dragon both continue cutting through peat and stone to finish the great canal that will link the lochs into one thread, from Inbhir Nis to Loch Linnhe.

The thought of being cleft so from England is amusing; if only the rivers neatly bordering his estate could do the same, though they serve well enough to isolate them even from the rest of the Peaks. The staff are just about the only contact he, Laurence, and Temeraire have with the outside world, aside from couriers and other visitors from the Corps. Even the other tenants are scattered far enough about the valley with his father’s name on it that he overheard a maid whispering, once, of her mother’s neighbor joking that he might as well be landed, himself.

It doesn’t feel as isolated as it should. The moors are good enough company, to say nothing of his extended houseguests, and here, soaring high enough above Scotland that his breath is short, with Temeraire’s sleek mass beneath him and Laurence’s familiar silhouette harnessed ahead of him, isolation is far from the first thing on his mind.

* * *

“I’m sorry, John,” Laurence says, “for what I said to you in Cusco. That you should… marry, regardless.”

Granby looks at him askance, not quite turning his head, and what Laurence can see of his face is carefully blank. It’s warm enough to have taken their whisky outside; Tharkay had politely excused himself to discuss arrangements for Granby’s stay with the staff, and the hall’s lights are warm at their backs, the air silent with Iskierka and Temeraire gone for a short flight in this long summer dusk.

“I thank you for the apology,” Granby says, after a pause, and the words are stiff and formal.

“Damn it all,” Laurence says, the whisky burning in his throat, or maybe something else, and he abandons all his learnèd decorum. “It was frightful of me to insinuate you should– force yourself to be with someone. Lord knows the gentry aren’t a shining example of what one should do in any case, marrying girls off to men thrice their age so they can be destroyed by childbirth, or– making unsatisfactory matches with men who can’t— who won’t care for them, in that way. Marriage is a tool of the Government, of the estate, and society and the Church, but at its core—” He gestures helplessly. “—well, there’s something sickeningly wrong about requiring – er, a union, where there is no want.”

Granby is silent, but it’s a more thoughtful silence this time. Laurence finds himself sweating under his neckcloth.

“And,” he continues, trying for gentleness, missing it by miles, sweat gathering at his fingertips now, “I’ve had reason to think…” He pauses. The neckcloth is oppressive; the snifter in his hands, leaden. “To think about things.”

“Oh?” Granby asks, very carefully.

“In the sense, that,” Laurence goes on, “you know, I may,” and, helpless over how to quantify it, the air stills in his throat as several things collide midair in the theatre of his mind: the comfortable fondness he’s shared with Jane, so very different to the rigid maneuvering of the ton, or to the easy habits of sailors; the chasmic wound of his quarrel with Riley over something so deeply, morally certain as an evil; Riley’s death and its peculiar, festering insistence on lingering so much longer than any death of a friend; and among it all, unbidden, the ghosting memory of Tharkay’s hand, warm against Laurence’s numb and wind-whipped skin as Tharkay had leaned forward to say something, hand cupped over his ear so as to be heard over wind and harness and Iskierka’s nearby persistent squabbling, and Laurence for the life of him can’t even remember what it was that Tharkay had intended to say, lost somewhere in the breath that had warmed his skin—

Laurence gives up, lamely, and finishes quite nonsensically by saying, “Well, anyway.”

The whisky tastes like absolutely nothing at all as he takes what barely passes as a polite sip of it; too warm, and pulling the knots of his tongue ever tighter.

“A fellow might come to realize,” Granby says, in a gentle, diplomatic voice, “that things haven’t changed, really, so much as he’s learned to view them in a different light.”

“Yes,” Laurence says, all the breath leaving his lungs as gratitude floods every inch of his body. He looks over to find Granby looking at him with a soft expression, somewhere between pitying and exasperated, and caring all the same. “Yes. Precisely.”

“Thank you, Will,” Granby says, smiling this time, “for apologizing. I’m glad we could talk.”

And with a strange weight lifted off of his chest, Laurence finds his breath comes light and sweet as Tharkay joins them with his empty glass and the rest of the bottle, and the three of them share a companionable silence as they wait for the sound of returning wingbeats.

* * *

"Tharkay," Temeraire asks quietly, though his voice echoes across the moor nonetheless, "you wouldn't like to go back to the Corps, would you?"

Tharkay looks at him. There's tension in the curve of his neck, though his shoulder is gentle and pliant against Tharkay's back, and where Laurence is dozing tucked closer to Temeraire's chest.

"I've no interest in serving," Tharkay replies, looking up at Temeraire’s downcast eye. "Why would you ask?"

"Oh," Temeraire says, scratching at the thin late-autumn remnants of grass with a claw and utterly failing at nonchalance, "I only wonder, if you might like to have a dragon of your own with the Corps, or if you would travel, and happen upon an egg, and it would hatch for you and take you away from me," and Tharkay notes the wing spread carefully around him in a new light. "Only because," Temeraire adds hastily, "I've already lost so much of my crew, and Laurence is so very fond of you, and I should like to keep you with us forever."

Tharkay closes the novel. It’s chilly at night, now; the lantern feigns warmth along with its light, but Temeraire is enough to ward off the chill air during this evening picnic of sorts. Laurence had fallen asleep mid-sentence whilst reading aloud, and tonight Temeraire hadn’t prompted Tharkay to continue reading for him. Tharkay had taken the novel out of Laurence’s hand for himself; it had been interesting enough. He closes it now, marking his page with a leaf not yet dry enough to crumble.

"If anything," Tharkay says, unable to smile, "I should ask if you would like to leave.”

“Leave? Why would we want to?” Temeraire’s head tips quizzically to the side.

“You shouldn’t feel beholden to me,” Tharkay says. The leaf trapped in his novel quivers in the faint heat of Temeraire’s exhale. “You and Laurence are free to leave whenever you like.”

“Do you want us to leave?” Temeraire asks, even more quietly, and his talons rasp at the dirt.

“No,” Tharkay replies, and the word feels so strange in his mouth, his voice low and odd as truth worms its way up out of his throat. “Frankly, Temeraire, I would be happy to have you and Laurence here for the rest of my life.” Temeraire’s talons still. “I greatly value your company, though I do not wish to impose myself upon either of you, or make you feel as if you must remain here for fear of offense.”

“I think you would be quite silly to think we would want to leave,” Temeraire says, voice inching back to his norm with a touch of indignation. “I have my wonderful pavilion here, and it’s _much_ nicer than any of Iskierka’s, and the updrafts over this part of England are so very pleasant to fly in, and I know Laurence is happy here without anyone to give him terrible commands anymore.”

“My home will be yours whenever you should like it, for however long,” Tharkay replies simply. “If you should ever like to leave, know that you are always welcome to return here.”

And Temeraire – Temeraire lowers his great head, coiling his neck around to reach, and gently noses Tharkay’s chest in a gesture he has only ever seen Laurence receive. His muzzle is solid and warm, the gesture tender in spite of his size, and Tharkay accepts it with a careful hand on Temeraire’s nose in return as he draws away his snout.

"Thank you," Temeraire says, softly, glowingly, and he levels Tharkay with a bright, warm eye. His voice rumbles, resonant, under Tharkay's hand. "And thank you for caring so for Laurence."

Tharkay manages a thin smile at this.

"I confess it is entirely selfish," he says, lowering his voice. He glances down at Laurence; in the space between Temeraire's forelegs, nestled against that great chest, Laurence looks almost small. His lips are slightly parted, his breaths heavy and full: he is well and truly asleep, comfortable here in Temeraire's unyielding shelter.

"Oh, Tharkay, there is nothing wrong with selfishness," Temeraire protests. "Only without being selfish, how would you ever acquire treasure, or keep a crew? Of course one must never be _overly_ selfish," he snorts, frowning, "lest one turn out to be utterly without manners or sensibility at all. But if you feel selfishly about Laurence, or me, well—” Temeraire cranes his neck up primly and shuffles his wings, gently enough to not disturb. "That is quite wonderful, I would say."

"Then instead I confess this," Tharkay says, emboldened by he knows not what: the soft cool evening, Temeraire's warm body, the gentle reckless spill of Laurence's hair over midnight scales. "I did not understand, at first, what drove you to fight for Laurence the way you had, during the invasion and after."

Temeraire peers down at him, curious.

"And now, Tharkay?"

He feels his thoughts pause, just for a breath.

"May I ask you to call me Tenzing?"

"Oh!" Temeraire's eye widens, then crinkles in joy, and Tharkay feels a warm spark settle in his chest. "Of course, Tenzing. But — now, I should hope you understand? About Laurence, I mean. He is so very—” Temeraire glances down; Tharkay gently quells the urge to tuck away the hair that has escaped Laurence's queue.

"He is insufferably noble,” Tharkay continues for him after a pause, “but not so much that one feels ignoble by comparison — quite the opposite; he rather emboldens to nobility. And he loves with all his being without regard for how it might destroy him. But most of all, Temeraire, he sees me for my person, and not my parentage, nor my peerage; he holds my privacy in highest regard, where any passerby on the street – or indeed any lord or admiral – feels wholly entitled to ask me all manner of personal question."

"But that is such a simple thing," Temeraire says, his great brow furrowed.

"Simple," Tharkay agrees, "and yet so rarely afforded me." He lays a hand on the side of Temeraire’s jaw, perhaps boldly, and yet Temeraire offers no rebuff. "In short, Temeraire: I daresay I do understand how you feel."

“As you should,” Temeraire replies, primly with just a touch of smugness, as if he had been expecting this all along.

Silence falls between them, companionable, and Tharkay turns the shape of it around in his head a few times. Temeraire’s lungs heave great and slow under his hand.

“I think I shall retire,” Tharkay says, his hand still warm as he pulls away from Temeraire’s soft pebbled hide, and he tucks the novel under his arm before standing.

“Pray bring Laurence with you up to the house, then,” Temeraire presses with a touch of anxiety, shifting his foreleg gently. “He complains about his back far too much as of late.”

Tharkay smiles and inclines his head, and then reaches down to clasp Laurence’s shoulder. He’s warm even through the coat, tucked so closely against Temeraire. Temeraire shifts his foreleg again, as politely as he can, and as he does Tharkay quietly calls, “Laurence?”

"Yes, my dear?" Laurence murmurs sleepily, and then blinks again, yawns, and half-heartedly straightens the lapels of his jacket as he sits upright and lays a gentle hand on the arched neck above him.

Tharkay moves his hand and wordlessly holds it out to Laurence instead, his thoughts doubling over themselves. Laurence takes the offered hand without hesitation and stands; he’s warm here too, warmer than his shoulder, as warm as Temeraire’s nose had been against his skin. Laurence presses his forehead against Temeraire’s nose and then steps back so that Temeraire can shake out his wings, and he smiles at Tharkay, soft with sleep and just a touch sheepish. Tharkay’s thoughts only work themselves into a larger knot as he collects the lantern and Laurence primly shakes out and folds up the blanket, and they walk back to the hall in a companionable silence, Temeraire’s wingbeats a soft echo in the evening.

* * *

"Temeraire," Laurence says, his voice low and heart sinking, one hand on Temeraire's broad, soft muzzle, "you cannot ever speak freely of Granby and Little so." Temeraire tips his head and blinks, and before he can ask, Laurence continues, "It's quite illegal."

Temeraire rears back at this, neck curling back in surprise.

“Illegal? Is it because they’re not married?” He blinks again, still clearly confused. “But why shouldn’t they be married?”

“Because they,” Laurence says wearily, “they can’t, my dear. It’s not legal. Two men can’t marry each other. Nor women, either. It’s punishable by death.”

“But whyever shouldn’t they marry? Would the men end up with too many properties? Or the women with too many dowries? Oh dear, I can see how that might be confusing with your titles and such, but there must be a simple way to do it. _Jane_ got a title when everyone thought she shouldn’t, after all.”

“It’s not,” Laurence tries, helpless, “it isn’t the titles, Temeraire, it’s that— well, people think that it’s—”

Temeraire waits, still confused, and gently prods on when it becomes clear that Laurence is at an utter loss for words.

“Is it the inheritances, then? Surely things can be settled otherwise even if two people don’t have an egg. I’m sure that happens – no egg, I mean – when men and women marry, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” Laurence replies weakly, “but it’s been illegal for a long time. It’s unlikely to change any time soon, and it’s — it’s a death sentence for men who disprefer the company of women. That’s how the law was written, and so it remains.”

“Oh, well,” Temeraire replies, something settling in his voice, “pray fetch some paper, and I shall write Perscitia immediately about putting a bill through.”

“Oh,” Laurence says, then, “pardon?”

“A new bill regarding marriages,” Temeraire says, almost impatiently, and then a sudden comprehension seems to dawn on him. Laurence’s stomach sinks immediately. “Laurence, is that why you haven’t married? Because you can’t?”

“I– well—” Laurence feels his face heat with mortification. “No, not precisely–”

“Well, then, all the more reason to put a bill through,” Temeraire says firmly. “Pray do fetch that paper and we’ll write Perscitia anon. Do you suppose some dragons might be married as well, if they should like to be?”

“You look a little pale,” Tharkay says with an edge of wryness – not wry enough to override his careful veneer of politeness – as Laurence stumbles into the study, minutes later, for pen and ink.

“I assure you I am fine,” Laurence tells him, voice weak to his own ears, and flees before the subject can be further pursued.

* * *

The house is imposing, lit just by a candle, but familiar nonetheless even from the relatively short – all things considered – amount of time he’s spent here. And it is, he realizes, the longest amount of time he’s spent comfortably housed without immediate plans to leave, to fight, to… do anything, really.

But his hands tremble around the handsome worn base of the lamp, and the thin, warm flame throws long shadows down the corridor.

Tharkay had laid it out quite reasonably: there was no sense in letting the dower house, handsome as it is, whilst also staffing and heating the entire massive hall just for one man. Laurence could reasonably have an isolated suite to himself, if he liked, but a lifetime of service has left Laurence with something near to superstition, and the noise of life is infinitely more comfortable than any genteel pretense to its lack.

The hallway is quiet, but kept warm against the night’s chill; the staff had very quickly read their employer as one significantly more caring than the estate's previous owners, and in combination with as handsome a pay as he and Tharkay could manage without seeming ludicrous or some form of bribery, the staff had become ferociously attached to the hall’s inhabitants, Temeraire included.

Laurence isn’t quite sure of his bearing yet; his mind is hazed with the long-fled memory of a nightmare, nerves still alight with some sensation he cannot recall. He has half a mind to step outside and speak with Temeraire, but he’s halfway down the creaking stairs before it occurs to him to perhaps grab a coat, or proper shoes; it had been raining in the evening, and it seems to still be–

There’s a creak somewhere below, a shift of weight, and suddenly Laurence realizes that there’s dim, dim light coming from the bottom of the stairs. A sharp needle of adrenaline races down his spine, fraying into crisp sensations as he descends the stairs keeping close to the wall, where the heavy timber supporting the steps keeps the handsome yew boards from creaking under his weight.

Faint candlelight crawls out from under the door to a study that Laurence doesn’t think he’s ever seen used, unlatched and left just ajar; air warmed not just by the banked fire but by action spills out alongside the light, and Laurence carefully peers into the room, careful to not stir the door.

The gleam of a weapon sets his nerves alight again immediately, but then a familiar hand wrapped around the hilt moves into view: scarred, blunt-edged, exceptionally familiar. Wrist bare.

“Tenzing?” he hazards, and winces; his throat is dry, hoarse with sleep.

Laurence’s sleep-addled brain only succeeds in noting the line of Tharkay’s hand gently pushing open the door, eyes tracking up his bare forearm, the crook of his elbow, the neat, lean lines of his shoulder – bare, all bare – and the sweat pooling at the dip of his collarbones, all before reaching the look of surprise on Tharkay’s face that surely matches his own.

“Did I wake you?” Tharkay asks softly, guarded; he’s wearing nothing but snug, worn trousers and a pair of thick stockings. Laurence looks away, politely, even though Tharkay seemingly does not feel indecent enough to fetch the dressing gown laid carefully over the back of a chair. Laurence's face heats.

“No, pray do not feel at fault,” Laurence manages. “I was awake long before I noticed a light coming from this room. Are you well, Tharkay?”

Tharkay wipes sweat from his forehead with his free hand; belatedly, Laurence realizes that it’s a saber he’s holding, and judging from the carefully cleared space in this study, Tharkay had clearly been practicing with it.

“I am,” Tharkay replies, a little ruefully; his voice is still soft. “I find that sleep is sometimes less elusive if I exert myself. Forgive me, but are _you_ well?”

He leans against the doorframe; his face is flushed from said exertion, though judging by the tired shadows under his eyes, his efforts have not yet come to fruition. Laurence carefully keeps his gaze on Tharkay’s face, ignoring the absolute indecency of his dress – lack thereof, rather – and studiously not thinking about the slope of his shoulders or the line of his waist, nor does he mark the old, speckled powder burns peppering his skin, the latticework of scars that matches Laurence’s own collection acquired at sea and in the air. Not that he’s looked enough to know.

The deflection lies easily on Laurence’s tongue, ready to slip off, but Tharkay’s eyes are watching him carefully, so carefully, and instead Laurence says, a little ruefully, “Uninterrupted sleep seems to be a difficult thing to come by tonight.”

Tharkay continues to watch him. His gaze isn’t evaluatory, but instead something closer to marking time; something like the way a navigator scans the sky to find Polaris.

“Would you care to join me?” Tharkay finally asks, after a pause that Laurence does not know how to time, and he steps aside to gesture behind himself into the study. A very small smile graces his face. “It’s been quite some time since you made use of that saber Temeraire gifted you, I daresay.”

In the end, they fence until the sky lightens to a soft, warm gray, and Laurence does not find himself tired in the least; instead, he feels alive.

* * *

He dreams: of gaps in memory that his mind creates only at night, and fills with things he knows to be false.

He dreams of the silent black husk of London. Ash falls brutally cold amid a Russian winter, and he walks side by side with Tharkay on dragon-wide streets; hand in hand, they wander past the still-smoking wreck of Kensington Palace and the gnarled bulbous spires of Saint Basil's Cathedral next to it, bright melted paint like blood upon the white ground.

When Tharkay leans in to whisper something to him, the heat of him electrifying against numb skin, Laurence knows with absolute certainty that he could turn his head to catch those words against his own mouth, and that Tharkay would let him: there is no falsehood of memory in this knowledge. But he does not act, and some creature in him howls as Tharkay whispers to him, words lost in the haze of a dream.

Their feet take them to Napoleon's gardens next, and Laurence sweats, and sweats, and sweats as the hot air rises through the intricate piping laid under cobblestone, his fingers slipping uncomfortably between Tharkay's, but he refuses to let go. He cannot.

An intricate pavilion lies in a sheltered glade, and draped overtop is the bleached bare skeleton of a dragon, the delicate bones of a ruff flared, maw gaping to show sharp teeth and a strange fluted bone in the throat, ribcage wide. Under the bones lies Temeraire, wings bound with bars and chain, and he opens clouded, gummed eyes as Laurence and Tharkay stop where grass gives way to handsome flat stone, belching wet heat from grates. Temeraire does not raise his head, and instead a ragged cough echoes wetly across flagstone, between columns placed with mathematical precision.

"Will," Tharkay says in Temeraire's hoarse rattling voice, and Laurence wakes drenched in sticky cold sweat, fingers numb where they are tangled in the sheets, shaking with the strength of his grip.

* * *

Snow starts to drift, slowly, beautifully, past the window, and abruptly Laurence says, “Temeraire has got it in his head to repeal the Buggery Act.”

Several things cross Tharkay’s face in rapid succession, and Laurence’s face heats immediately as he realizes just what he’s insinuated.

“Not on anyone's account,” he says hastily, thinking of Granby, Granby, Granby, “no one in particular, of course; he had asked about marriage, and I’d explained— well, the Church defines marriage in a certain way, and buggery and bastardry are—” He stops as abruptly as he started, redder than perhaps he’s ever been, and he straightens the sleeves of his coat. “In any case, I’m sure the village will be abuzz when Perscitia makes her motion next week, she’s been conspiring with Temeraire for some time now. Lord only knows what the vicar will say. And,” he adds, half-miserable, digging his grave by hand now, having abandoned shovel, “with the backing she’ll receive from the women she recently liberated from skirts and petticoats, it’s likely to get serious attention.”

“A champion for everyone’s rights, isn’t she?” Tharkay murmurs, but it’s thoughtful, not sardonic, and then Laurence’s world is abruptly turned entirely upside down as he continues, “I always thought I should like to marry, someday. Perhaps when she succeeds, I might.”

Laurence is still speechless, scrambling internally to find a foothold, when Tharkay smiles and takes his leave with a murmured, “Good night, Will. Sleep well.”

* * *

“I never thanked you properly,” Laurence says, quite apropos of nothing, and Tharkay looks over at him.

“For what?” he asks, feeling a little wry in spite of the worn, serious look weighing on Laurence’s face. “By my count, there’s quite a long list.”

Laurence’s cheeks color just a shade as his eyes dart up to meet Tharkay’s, bright for just a second before the emotion fades. He clears his throat and clarifies, “For what you said to me during Napoleon's invasion.”

The shift in mood is palpable. Tharkay straightens; his fingers still on the stem of his wine glass.

“I said a great many things,” Tharkay replies, after a pause, "none of them particularly worthy of thanks."

When Laurence reaches over the table, he doesn’t quite manage to look Tharkay in the eyes; Tharkay, in turn, cannot bring himself to rebuff the movement, even as it becomes wholly clear what Laurence aims to do. He is far too selfish, and far too tired of denying himself any pleasures, and as Laurence’s fingertips graze against his own battered knuckles, he forces back a shiver at the warm touch. He thinks Laurence’s hand might have trembled.

"By God, Tenzing, I was lost to myself." He looks wretched as he says the word, though some indefatigable thing in him leaps as Laurence shapes the syllables of his name; softly, the way his mother had meant it to be said. "It could have been anyone to say those words to me, but it was you; and the more I thought of it, the more I realized that I would have heeded no one but you." Tharkay is silent; Laurence smiles, wan. "At every juncture, you surprise me with the simplest answers. There is nothing complicated about you, save for the net of your straightforward sensibility, and I am in knots within it. Every time I find myself cut loose, I am caught once again."

"Simplicity is often the hardest answer," Tharkay finally says. "Especially for one such as yourself, so ensnared by the queer English notions of duty and honor."

Laurence's wan smile returns, flickering a little warmer this time in the candlelight.

"Temeraire and I owe you our lives, and indeed our livelihoods, a thousand times over. I thank you, from the deepest well of my heart."

For an interminable amount of time, Tharkay does not move or speak. And then, all at once, his mind is made: he turns his hand under Laurence’s with a soft rasp of skin on skin, and he grips Laurence’s hand. Gently, at first, and then his grip tightens; he watches Laurence’s skin crease and blush under his fingers, watches his fingers bleed nearly white as he squeezes, knuckles burning with familiar old aches.

"Will," he finally says, damningly soft, and finds himself then at a loss for words.

Laurence simply squeezes his hand in return. They sit, wordless, fingers wrapped around palms, until the candle starts to gutter.

* * *

“I think Tharkay loves you very much,” Temeraire says, and immediately Laurence slides on some unseen patch of ice, his queue flying upward as he falls. Temeraire lunges to catch him. “Oh, Laurence–”

“I’m quite alright,” Laurence manages, and rights himself on one of Temeraire’s talons. The snow caught on the ridges of his scales is one matter; the mud underneath shall be rather a chore to wash out later. Laurence pats the front of his coat.

“The novels?” Temeraire asks anxiously. He had made it quite clear that flying into town to meet the publisher’s salespeople would have been a much simpler trip, but Laurence had insisted on a walk; Tharkay had had some business to attend to, and so Temeraire had taken the unusual opportunity to stroll alongside Laurence, making one half-pace for every ten of his. “And the pamphlets?”

“No need to worry, my dear,” Laurence replies, laying a hand on the side of his neck.

Temeraire shakes out his wings in anticipation. The _pamphlets_ – now those had been a real prize, brought along by a prim young woman in a billowing trouser-suit cut in the latest fashion, as if it had once been a gown and had simply been bound down the middle. He had spoken quite at length with her about Parliament and theories and democracies and voting, and in the end she’d pressed a whole sheaf of pamphlets into Laurence’s hands between the novels (and one scientific text on celestial mechanics) with a knowing smile.

“Very well,” Temeraire says, and resumes his slow, stately walk alongside Laurence. “As I was saying, I think Tharkay must love you very much.”

“Hush, now, Temeraire,” Laurence chides quietly, but his voice sounds a little odd. “Your voice does carry so. Is there, er, a point– that is to say, what precisely is your reasoning?”

Temeraire looks down at him, surprised, and says, “Why, I thought it would be obvious.”

“Perhaps not to me,” Laurence replies, and his smile flickers as quickly as the breath that fogs the air.

And so Temeraire explains, as if to a hatchling, all the ways one shows their regard for another: starting, naturally, with all of the trinkets Tharkay has given him, which by Temeraire’s count is quite many – a fine tea set to be shared between them, a new harness (for Temeraire as much as for Laurence, of course), a lovely couch in his pavilion to comfortably read on; and then adding other things, such as just yesterday, when he had brushed snow off of Laurence’s coat; or how every time Laurence falls asleep reading, which is quite often now, Tharkay will always come fetch him.

Laurence’s cheeks grow pinker and pinker with cold as they walk on, up the long winding road to the estate’s grounds, and by the time they return to the hall Temeraire finds himself quite anxious that Laurence might have a fever.

“Tharkay,” he says, very quietly, after Laurence hurries into the house with unusual speed, now quite red in the face, “would you mind looking after Laurence tonight? I worry that he has caught some fever. Oh! Why, you are looking a little pink also.” Temeraire leans down to peer more closely and indeed: Tharkay’s cheeks are flushed as well, just from being outside to greet Laurence and Temeraire. “Pray step back inside— I shall ask the staff to draw you both hot baths and prepare tea.”

Tharkay, sensibly, doesn’t protest. Temeraire rather picks at his own luncheon, and firmly banishes Tharkay and Laurence to taking their tea inside – they seem better already, just being inside, and while he cannot hear past the warm thick glass shielding them from the outside air, Temeraire lays his chin upon his forepaws and watches them talk over their tea. He drifts asleep, there, to the imagined hum of their conversation, easily conjured from memory, and hopes fervently that whatever fever had seemed to take them both eases quickly.

* * *

It doesn't happen the way that Laurence had thought it would. Perhaps he had been too ambitious in his daydreaming, or had thought far too highly of himself; in the end, all of his lofty aspirations of some kind of grand declaration of intent had been overridden by some aviatorish impulse to simply act.

Tharkay is leaning in towards him as the conversation trails off, one elbow resting with calculated intent on the table in a way that would make any governess faint, and the thoughtfulness in his eyes, lit by the warm gray skies of early spring – Laurence can barely recall where their conversation had ended – drives the wild impulse: Laurence leans forward, and kisses him.

Tharkay is pliant with surprise, and immediately Laurence is flooded with guilt. This kind of behavior would be atrocious on any rung of society, aviator or not— he has no excuse, save for this inevitable ember that had been burning in his chest for far too long—

But as he leans away Tharkay makes an unidentifiable noise somewhere between _no_ or _wait_ and _yes_ , and he darts forward to close the distance between them again. His mouth is pliant still, but decisive now instead of shocked; his hands rest on either side of Laurence's neck, thumbs pressing against his cheeks, his jaw, and Laurence, distantly, is reminded of a shipboard fire: great supportive timbers crackling under the careful hot attentions of flame, smoke rising to push all the air out of bellowed sails. He will never be seaworthy again if this is the port he must sail from.

He leans away once again – though it pains him – and finds Tharkay more discomposed than he has ever looked. His hair is just slightly nudged out of its careful arrangement; his cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright and with a wild edge to them, his lips parted and expectant, and he looks so very nearly dazed that Laurence finds his heart thumping even more out of time.

As if this were his only chance at gluttony, Laurence indulges. He shifts to kiss the corner of Tharkay's mouth, the corner that twists up so wryly; he kisses under the curve of Tharkay's cheek where shadows collect to paint the faint crease of a scar; he kisses the softly stubbled curve of Tharkay's jaw; and Tharkay leans into him each time, as if he's basking in Laurence's attention.

"Will," he sighs as Laurence kisses at the very edge of his neckcloth, and the firestorm in Laurence's veins turns to lightning. Tharkay’s fingers slide into his hair and catch against the neat plaits of his queue, the motion tugging gently, and Laurence can’t quite stop the sharp inhale as—

A high-pitched gasp, barely muffled by the rustle of cloth, registers dully in Laurence’s hearing.

Tharkay stills under him. Laurence steels himself, and looks past the flushed curve of Tharkay's cheek, already turned towards the intrusion.

One of the maids is standing in the doorway, one hand over her mouth, the other twisted tightly into her skirt with whitened knuckles.

“Miss Fletcher,” Tharkay says, his voice calm but, shockingly, not cold, “pray make note that the staff should hereafter knock before entering a room.” After a slight pause he adds, with some amount of pointedness, “And be doubly sure to let Miss Young know.”

At this, Miss Fletcher goes bright red, and practically collapses over into a deep curtsey more befitting a king.

“Of course, my lord,” she says, her voice wavering. “Shall I fetch some more tea for yourself and Admiral Laurence?”

“Your earlier service was perfectly adequate,” Tharkay replies, again without coldness or abject dismissal. “The fault lies with us for having gotten distracted. Pray tell Cook that the tart is excellent.”

Miss Fletcher bobs and curtsies again, and then flees more quickly than Laurence has ever seen her move. Before he can ask, Tharkay matter-of-factly remarks in Chinese, “Last month I found her, ah, fixing Miss Young’s stays in a spare study.”

Laurence feels his face heat instantly, and a strangled noise leaves his throat.

"Did you _blackmail_ her?" he manages, choking out the words in Chinese as well as he can through his shock – at her, at _this_ , at the hand Tharkay has carefully rested on his knee.

"No," Tharkay replies, amused. "Though it seems I did not balance well reprimanding the two of them for having abandoned the laundry, and attempting to assure them that they have not lost their employment; or that she is among, shall we say, like-minded people. And I suppose it would be easier for two young women to plead off an… indiscretion, as it were, if they needed to defend themselves."

“But this,” Laurence says, and the intimacy of speaking a language only one other person inside this house understands truly hits him, “is not quite an indiscretion, is it?”

"The word implies poor judgement," Tharkay replies. "I should think it is not, at the least on my part."

"Nor on mine," Laurence murmurs. He reaches down to take Tharkay's hand: familiar, although not to the touch, embroidered in a patchwork of scars both small and big, handsomely calloused through work and travel. Hands that match his own.

"Would you join me tonight when I retire?" Tharkay asks, smiling that odd, half-mischievous smile of his, and Laurence is lost in knowing that bare minutes ago he had kissed that very corner of Tharkay's mouth, the one now turned up in mirth and something deeper.

“Yes,” Laurence replies in English, tongue clumsy with it, “yes, of _course_ ,” and in response Tharkay leans in, laughs quietly against his lips, and kisses him again.

* * *

Hours later, when the lamplight is warm and the fires banked, Laurence stands in a bedroom still unfamiliar to him and burns.

He wants nothing more than to see Tharkay's composure stripped away like the armor that it is, to see Tharkay wanting and desperate, and already he feels the lightning rush of want licking through him at just the mere thought of it.

But Tharkay murmurs, "Shall I tell you what I like?" in a quiet voice against his cheek, and Laurence feels his thoughts crumple like paper.

"Yes," is all he can manage, driven dumbstruck and thoroughly nonsensical by one short phrase, and Tharkay laughs – _oh_ – quietly against him and obliges the request wordlessly, guiding Laurence's hand down.

He's grown softer around the edges, just a bit; the hard corded lines of muscle have been smoothed over by an easier life, and with a surge of boldness Laurence kneels instead to follow Tharkay's hand with his mouth.

"Oh," Tharkay hums, rather more smugly than with any amount of surprise, "yes. Well done."

And immediately Laurence knows he will do anything to hear this soft careless praise again, gifted to him for something so simple. Laurence easily, hungrily follows the guiding hand now plaited carefully into his hair, deviating only to kiss the softened curve of his hip, reveling as Tharkay exhales a gratifyingly sharp breath. Tharkay's hand stills; Laurence's breaths come quickened already. They're almost at an impasse, like this — with Tharkay gazing down at him, something like calculation in his eyes, and Laurence staring back, waiting for that hand to move, for a twitch or nudge to tell him where and how.

"I want you to kiss me," Tharkay finally says, a little rueful, almost sheepish, and when Laurence tries to stand Tharkay's hand keeps him pinned and he continues on to say, "Ah. But this I prefer in the moment, as it were. A kiss shall have to wait." A heady rush of heat rolls through Laurence's stomach, and he sits back amid the protests of his knees. Tharkay's fingers loosen, just slightly.

"Tell me what you want," Laurence says, and his voice sounds mortifyingly close to begging to his own ears.

Tharkay's gaze heats and sharpens, like iron drawn from the fire, ready to be shaped — and then he softens, and the hand in Laurence's hair eases through one soft stroke.

"I want many things," he says. "I should hope we have more than this one night to explore them all."

Laurence leans his temple against the slope of Tharkay's hip. The faint scent of soap rises from Tharkay's warm skin, mingled with the peculiar thick smell of well cared-for wool.

"I should hope so as well," he replies, murmuring the words against the bare skin just above his breeches; the same comfortable worn pair he wears when they fence, and Laurence has long abandoned the pretense that he has ached to do just this since the first night he saw Tharkay so undressed. Tharkay's interest is obvious under the soft wool and in the hand that tightens in Laurence's hair once more: gently, by no means to discourage.

"Tenzing– please, I am at your service—"

"Yes," Tharkay breathes; Laurence swallows the word and more besides that, consigning himself to the swelling sea of pleasure, casting off all mooring and adrift in a storm that has haunted the edge of his horizon for far too long.

* * *

"Is this why you asked us to stay with you?" Laurence asks later, mostly in jest, as Tharkay's fingers explore his back, long meandering lines punctuated every so often by the press of his lips.

"Perhaps," Tharkay replies, the requisite amusement ringing clearly before his voice lowers. "I asked because I would happily have you and Temeraire in my life for whatever remains of it. You've done me a great service through your friendship, Will, and though I cannot adequately express it, please know that my life changed inestimably for the better thanks to you, and I do not include the inheritance of this estate in that measure."

Laurence turns to lie on his back. Tharkay is leaning on an elbow, looking thoughtfully down at him; his hand slides over Laurence’s shoulder as he moves, traces down the plane of his chest to settle against the edge of his jaw.

“It would feel cheap to repeat your words to the letter,” Laurence says, “but I feel quite the same. I confess," he continues, voice lowering, "that I had tried to convince myself that your companionship suffices, to any degree you would be willing to extend it, but I am, in this regard, hopelessly selfish. You gift me an inch; I ache for a mile."

Tharkay smiles, and his fingers push a strand of stray sweat-plaited hair round the curve of his ear.

"You have not a single selfish bone in your body," Tharkay says, "and I should like to think I've seen most of them, in all your states of injury. Will, I am yours; in companionship and intimacy both, or in neither if you so wish."

"I do not," Laurence says quietly.

Tharkay says nothing, but his response is clear in the familiar satisfied glitter of his eyes, in the press of warm hands, in the small scar on his lip that Laurence has already committed to memory, and so the moon slowly rises on a night much like any other: spent together in near-quiet companionship, in the intimacy of two people who have known each other everywhere except here.

(Dazedly, later, Laurence thinks once more that of all the roads he could have flown, he would have none other than the one that has brought him this. Even among all of the hardships he has endured and indeed himself caused, the bright sparks outweigh the pressing darkness, in the same way that the light press of Tharkay’s sleep-heavy breath against his collar sends skittering jolts through every limb.)

* * *

Time passes slowly, like honey from a spoon, as spring melts into cool summer and then into warm autumn. The old vicar passes away at the start of winter; a vicious and unpleasant man, he had been singularly bent on condemning Tharkay – and indeed Laurence as well – at every possible turn. Only after the new vicar is installed does Tharkay sense the breath of relief that sweeps through the town, and Tharkay rather thinks the cheerful young man was sent here as some form of punishment. Their first meeting is polite and warm, however, and the vicar only suggests some sorely needed renovations to the small church rather than the absurdities his predecessor had demanded, and politely concludes their tea.

And so the town slowly heals its wounds, too, amassing soft new scars with each passing month and each solicitor and businessman Tharkay hires: a new roof for nearly every house, better fencing for the pastures, better paving for the lone road that spools up through the town. A late storm washes out the bridge and that, too, becomes its own scar, with new stonework laid by a team of men and dragons with astonishing speed; a cheerful band of small Welsh dragons, scales a bright blood-red, help install the roofing alongside slightly confounded townsmen.

Temeraire is at Parliament shockingly often; he and Perscitia draft bill after bill, motion after motion, and though many of them fail, a surprising majority pass. They had not been successful in securing a basic stipendium for all citizens, and neither had some of their more whimsical trade agreements been passed, but with the rush of young women becoming aviators, all women – gentry and nobility alike – have steadily gained all the rights owed to men. Freedom to divorce had come first, followed by changed laws of inheritance that turned bastardy firmly upon its head; and then, one sleeting February afternoon, Temeraire bursts over the hall in a shower of wingbeats and freezing rain to declare that Perscitia’s motion had passed, and that Iskierka had lit the London skies ablaze in glee that Granby could finally marry. (What Granby thought of this, Tharkay did not find out until a small house-party about a month later: the verdict was, predictably, that he was utterly mortified, and unwilling to marry until retirement due to what he referred to as “certain complications.”)

His life slowly grows roots here, but it does not bore in the slightest, as he had feared it might. Tharkay is a wanderer by nature, and it calls to him still: he settles the itch by exploring every inch of Laurence and writing it all to the map of his memory, drawing palms over scars he knows and those Laurence has carried for longer than the decade they've known each other. The spots that startle out an incongruous laugh he catalogues just as meticulously as those that draw out something more heated; he guards them more jealously as well, he finds, and admires his hoard in the low hours of the night, just to feel the press of Laurence's smile against his skin. Intimacy never quite loses its novelty, but instead grows with patience into a pattern of normalcy that is in itself novel, and welcome.

* * *

“I’m here to propose a marriage,” Jane says, looking over the tea-table as if it is a map, and the tea set pins upon it to chart the war she’s about to wage.

“Pardon?” Laurence asks, very carefully. Next to him, he feels Tharkay stiffen. Jane smiles sharply over the rim of her cup. It’s a beautiful set, wrought broadly in the English style, but with furnishings expressly Chinese: exquisitely painted dragons adorning the flower-shaped cups, petals blooming just wide enough to be markedly different, with delicate handles and uniquely flat saucers. It had been a gift from Ning, and Temeraire has encouraged its use near-constantly.

“A marriage,” Jane repeats, and next to her, both Mrs. Pemberton – in a prim trouser-suit, fashionable but not ostentatious – and Lady Allendale both clearly work to conceal their continued shock.

“Your Grace,” Mrs. Pemberton says, and Jane cuts her off with a raised hand.

“I’m sure you know just what your blasted dragon has been getting up to in Parliament,” Jane says, looking at Laurence, and under her pointed gaze – and that of his mother – Laurence slowly feels his face heat. Tharkay’s calm presence next to him feels like a raging inferno, like a signal-fire belching smoke thousands of feet high. “With the Act’s repeal and marriage rights thrown into a right bloody mess,” and Lady Allendale coughs delicately at her language, “neither Parliament nor the Admiralty can get their heads on straight. The public marriage of a traitor would be scandal enough – and subsequently ignorable enough – to get them over it.”

Laurence sets his cup down with a dissonant clatter, his hands ice-cold.

“Surely you do not mean to propose–”

“Oh, who else, Will?” Jane’s impatient voice cuts across him like a shearing wind, blowing his concerns aside like splinters. “Give them something to talk about for a week, and then live your lives in peace.”

Lady Allendale’s eyes finally make the slow slide from Laurence’s face to Tharkay beside him, and Laurence feels as if he is in a coffin, watching the lid lower.

Silence spreads uncomfortably through the parlor. Ardently, Laurence wishes Temeraire were here – not just for the support of his very presence, but to put this to rest in that way he has: to cut through all of the polish of society and find the ore.

In the end what he says is, “I’ve given enough.”

Jane’s eyes harden, just for a minute, to the steel Laurence is used to seeing in them, and then she lowers her eyes and takes a drink of tea.

“There’s no one you should like to marry, then?” she asks, calculated, and quick as flame to tinder, Tharkay replies, “Shouldn’t you ask instead if there’s anyone who should like to marry _him?_ ”

The silence creeps back like frost. Tharkay is levelling Jane with a stare to rival her own. Lady Allendale looks faint. Mrs. Pemberton stares into her teacup as if it might rescue her somehow. Laurence looks away from Jane, away from his mother, and at the familiar, politely folded hands beside him. He says, quietly, “No one who thinks he must do it under duress, I should hope.”

Lady Allendale’s teacup clatters awkwardly against the saucer. Mrs. Pemberton has fished a fan out of her trouser-pocket and is fanning herself in odd lurching motions, quite at odds with the exceptionally cool late-summer air drafting gently in from the windows.

“Many things I have done under duress,” Tharkay says, matching his quiet tones, as if wishing for privacy, “but I would not count the prospect of marriage among them.”

Laurence wishes, fervently, that the rest of the world would fall away, and he would be left with nothing but Tharkay’s even gaze, the creases of his smile falling serious and patient; that he would be blissfully unaware of the viciously triumphant set of Jane’s jaw in the corner of his eye, or his mother’s shocked hand over her breast.

But the world exists, and he must face it. Jane’s suggestion is bold, _too_ bold, though Laurence would be a liar to say he had not considered the prospect of marriage when the Act had been repealed, and replaced with bills allowing for other unions. The reason to marry sits beside him; the excuse sits in Westminster.

The rest of the tea melts into stiff, careful conversation. Jane’s eyes never leave his. He never manages to meet his mother’s. And Mrs. Pemberton, still clutching her fan, cannot seem to look away from Jane, as if she’s never quite seen her properly before.

* * *

“If the circumstances were different,” Tharkay asks, kissing just above the collar of his nightshirt, “would you?”

“Would I– marry you?”

Tharkay hums against his skin.

“I… frankly, I don’t know what to think now that Jane brought it up in such a way.” Laurence turns to look at him, painted in soft warm light by the small lamp at their bedside. “Never in all my life would I have thought…” His thoughts are a slow flurry, muddled by Tharkay’s gentle fingertips against his jaw, his neck, his hair. The threads of his thought slip through his fingers as he kisses Tharkay, slow, unhurried, savoring this as if he has never done so before, and eventually he says, “You deserve more than a spectacle.”

“Unfortunately, you yourself are a spectacle,” Tharkay replies, with a wry smile, “though I do believe I love you for it. And pray do not forget that I myself am considered nothing more than a spectacle by much of your peerage.”

“ _Your_ peerage,” Laurence counters, only slightly mollified. “But Tenzing, I insist: you deserve more than a marriage made to scandalize Parliament so that it does not boil over. I owe you a better life than that.”

“And if the law hadn’t been changed? What then?” Tharkay looks at him; there is something like a frown on his brow, but his eyes are bright with odd amusement. “If not, then we still would be here, together in this hall, and indeed in bed, I should hope; the law did not stop us or countless others from living a perfectly fine life together before it was changed, and now it truly only serves as a show of state. I do not need marriage to love you, Will. It would be window-dressing; welcome, certainly, but I hardly need the Church to affirm your affections for me, nor your desire to live here with me. Whatever kind of life you believe to owe me, I already have, happily, with you now.”

Pretty words, all true, and Laurence kisses Tharkay once for each of them: gently, with as much eloquence as he can manage to match. Laurence presses his cheek against Tharkay’s and says, “Yes: were the circumstances different, I would have the banns read this Sunday, blast the opinions of the town, or the peerage, or my own family.”

Tharkay’s lips press gently against his, and then against the corner of his mouth, and then his hand finds Laurence’s and he kisses that, too, bringing their joined fingers up from under the cool summertime bed-dressings.

“So then shall we take tea with the vicar this week?” Tharkay murmurs, rubbing his thumb over Laurence’s fourth knuckle, and Laurence is helpless: as lost a cause as he has ever been, like seafoam dissipating against a shore against the shape of Tharkay’s smile pressed to his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> title from glory by bastille - and thank you to key for cheerleading, holding my digital hand while i plowed through these books in a week, and looking over this before posting. also, shoutout to cat sebastian's gay regency novels for giving me the approximate background knowledge necessary to write gay historical fanfiction.


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